New Hampshire GOP Adds ‘Personhood’ To Party Platform
“Personhood” has recently found its way to the Republican Platform in New Hampshire. This past weekend the Party announced that the platform now states: “support the unborn child’s fundamental right to life and establish that, in NH law, personhood begins at conception”
If you’re a liberal in America there’s little that will make you cringe like the term “personhood.” Historically, “personhood” has been used to protect and defend the rights of people in this country. From the abolition of slavery to women’s rights, the civil rights movement and immigration, personhood establishes that only a natural person, by law, can be afforded the rights of citizenship, equality and liberty. What a fantastic concept.
Like so many fantastic concepts, “personhood” has been hijacked by conservatives. Their goal, of course, is to deny women the right to make their own health care decisions, from terminating an unwanted pregnancy up to and including access to birth control. They believe an unborn fetus should have the same protections as a living person, making a woman who decides to abort a murderer and a pharmacist who fills a Plan B prescription guilty of conspiracy. These “pre-born” people should be afforded the rights of a person in the United States under the 14th amendment. It’s ludicrous, it violates the 1st amendment by imposing the religious beliefs of one group of people on our governing laws, and it disregards the Roe v Wade decision that saved the lives of countless women by making safe abortion legal.
The party is no stranger to supporting the pro life position, but the addition of “personhood” could pose potential trouble for Republican Senatorial Candidate Scott Brown.
“Personhood,” put Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown, who was a pro-choice Senator in Massachusetts, in a potentially precarious position, but his camp released a statement that Brown is not with the party on this one.
In an emailed statement, a Brown aide made clear that the former Massachusetts senator does not agree with the personhood language, which defines life as starting at conception and grants fetuses the same rights as human beings.
“Scott Brown is pro-choice and will protect a woman’s right to choose,” Brown spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton said.
You have to give the man kudos for not going all Mitt Romney and deciding to simply change his mind when the political wind blows. You also have to give kudos, if you’re a liberal, to the New Hampshire Republican Party for shooting themselves in the foot.
Copyright 2014 Liberaland
By: BustaTroll
On a summer day in 2013 Busta Troll was born of the politically active mind of one Christopher Blair to dissect the idiocy of the trolls on his Facebook page...It became obvious that Busta was destined not only to bust trolls, but to join the ranks of trolls of the liberal variety...After a year of trolling the informationally (I just made that up) and intellectually impaired right wing nutjobs of Facebook and many, many goatz, Busta has settled into a comfy chair and gone back to writing...
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mmaynard119 September 24th, 2014 at 09:06
Koch Brothers and ALEC strike again. It’s part of the overall campaign to deflect attention from the real issue – make more money for the 1%. They must be getting concerned since their boy toy Zoolander is losing.
mmaynard119 September 24th, 2014 at 09:06
Koch Brothers and ALEC strike again. It’s part of the overall campaign to deflect attention from the real issue – make more money for the 1%. They must be getting concerned since their boy toy Zoolander is losing.
mmaynard119 September 24th, 2014 at 09:08
Jake – those questions are brilliant. Well done!
Darlene Pawlik September 27th, 2014 at 08:41
It would appear that the author thinks assigning “personhood” is comparable to assigning a religious title. It merely states the obvious, factual and scientific condition of a human being. The term doesn’t deny women anything, except maybe to discount that her decisions affect another human being. All of our decisions affect other people.
There is a lot of very silly extrapolations about miscarriage etc. here people.
It’s a non-binding Statement, obviously. If Scott Brown can immediately discount it, it is a standard that some people will uphold and others will not.
Carla Akins September 27th, 2014 at 09:34
Uh, no. It’s not obvious and factual science does not back you up – the exact moment of fertilization varies and is not known, a fertilized egg is not a person, and assigning rights to a zygote is a dangerous precedent. It may be non-binding but adding it the party platform does matters if the party comes into power – then it becomes a very big deal. Zygotes and fetus cannot exist separate from their mother and to assign them rights over and above their mother is ridiculous. Personhood laws would criminalize abortion with no exceptions, ban common forms of birth control, stem-cell research, and in-vitro fertilization. You know …..obvious factual science stuff.
Darlene Pawlik September 27th, 2014 at 08:41
It would appear that the author thinks assigning “personhood” is comparable to assigning a religious title. It merely states the obvious, factual and scientific condition of a human being. The term doesn’t deny women anything, except maybe to discount that her decisions affect another human being. All of our decisions affect other people.
There is a lot of very silly extrapolations about miscarriage etc. here people.
It’s a non-binding Statement, obviously. If Scott Brown can immediately discount it, it is a standard that some people will uphold and others will not.
Carla Akins September 27th, 2014 at 09:34
Uh, no. It’s not obvious and factual science does not back you up – the exact moment of fertilization varies and is not known, a fertilized egg is not a person, and assigning rights to a zygote is a dangerous precedent. It may be non-binding but adding it the party platform does matters if the party comes into power – then it becomes a very big deal. Zygotes and fetus cannot exist separate from their mother and to assign them rights over and above their mother is ridiculous. Personhood laws would criminalize abortion with no exceptions, ban common forms of birth control, stem-cell research, and in-vitro fertilization. You know …..obvious factual science stuff.